Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Unfriending

There's no advance warning, no well-rehearsed speech about how this decision could affect your future relationship.

Instead, you stumble upon the news accidentally. A seemingly innocent perusal of your Facebook account yields a harsh realization:

You've been unfriended.

Sorry, I can't say anything that will stop you from feeling like a social outcast.

But look on the bright side of things: You now have a personal story to attach to the New Oxford American Dictionary's 2009 Word of the Year.

That's right, the Oxford folks gave "unfriend" top ranking because of its "popularity in everyday usage and cultural importance over the previous twelve months."

As trivial as the word sounds, I think the unfriending process has definitely changed our social interactions. Until about a month ago, I'd only been unfriended by people who had canceled their Facebook accounts, or didn't talk to me at all anyway.

Then, out of the blue, I couldn't access a friend's Facebook page. This was somebody I talked to on almost a daily basis.

I panicked, reevaluating every conversation we'd had in recent history. I even drafted an e-mail begging her to let me enter her cyber world once again.

Long story short, it was all just a technical glitch. But the fact that a simple computer error jeopardized our real-life friendship so quickly was kind of scary.